When your child is being teased at school

By Justin Coulson |

Teasing occurs in every school yard (and many families) every single day. Cruel remarks that are delivered to ridicule, taunt, embarrass, and make fun of a victim are common, and are unfortunately accepted as part of life. Parents need effective strategies to help their child overcome the mockery, and bounce back with a resilient mindset.

Below are three common mistakes parents make when dealing with children upset by teasing, and three simple strategies for providing a supportive environment that buffers your child from the harm teasing can cause.

Mistake 1: Dismissive Responding

“Oh get over it.”

“Well if you’re going to listen to that, or play with them, it’s your own fault.”

Children who are being teased will often come to parents for support. Parents who are dismissive are often trying to ‘harden up’ their child, but may reduce resilience by failing to provide needed support.

Mistake 2: Retaliation

A 9 year-old boy was told by his father, “If he’s mean to you again tomorrow, punch him in the nose”.

An 11 year-old girl was told by her mother, “You tell her she’s a rude little cow if she treats you like that again.”

While fighting fire with fire may seem logical in the heat of the moment, retaliation rarely resolves concerns in relationships. Clever comebacks only create an ongoing contentious spiral of teasing and hurt.

Mistake 3: Ignore it and it Will Go Away

Passivity is unhelpful. Shrugging our shoulders, turning our back, or failing to address the issues will not meet the needs of our children. Ignoring our child’s plight will leave her feeling isolated, lonely, and questioning her value as a person.

Here are 3 strategies to use when your child is being teased:

1. Be Emotionally Available

Kids who have parents that are emotionally available are far more likely to have positive relationships with others (among a multitude of other benefits). Kids whose parents are not emotionally available are more likely to have negative relationships with others. If your child is being teased, take time to simply be with him or her. Listen. Don’t offer advice. Just be there as an emotionally safe place for your child.

2. Perspective Taking

Chloe and Lilly were best friends and in second grade. Lilly was crying because Chloe had hit her. After her mother took some time to be emotionally available, Lilly calmed down. Her mother asked why Chloe hit her. Lilly replied, “I don’t know.”

Her mother then said, “Let’s do a little experiment. I want you to pretend that you’re Chloe. Imagine I asked you, as Chloe, why you hit Lilly. What would you say to me if you were Chloe and I asked you that?”

Sheepishly Lilly replied, “That Lilly was teasing me about how she could see my undies.”

Through perspective taking, parents can gain insight into how their children feel. They can also develop the skill of perspective taking in their children to discover other important aspects of relationships in the school yard that their children may be less willing to share through typical questioning.

3. Strategise Together

When teasing is creating distress, children need parents who are available, and who want to help. But helping too much may not allow our children to develop important relationship skills. We may also undermine their decision making development. It can be helpful to offer reassurance, and then invite your child to consider useful solutions. Often the answers are inside them, and will come out if they know we, as parents, are available to them.

Kindness, patience, and invitations to be friends are often far more effective in restoring friendship than aggressive practices, and as we strategise it will be useful to guide our children toward these types of mutually beneficial responses.

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This article was written for Kidspot by Justin Coulson, Ph. D. Justin is a relationships and parenting expert, author and father of five children. Find him on Facebook, Twitter, and at happyfamilies.com.au.